


Far from the Fame

by Stormchild



Series: Young Rockstars [2]
Category: Young Justice
Genre: Rockstar AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 10:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormchild/pseuds/Stormchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Kaldur touches a cello, he’s eight. Roys's reluctant to touch the expensive drum set Ollie gets him.</p><p>Neither of them really knows what to expect. And if they expected anything, it’s definitely not what they got.</p><p>Rockstar!AU featuring cellist/bassist!Kaldur and drummer!Roy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far from the Fame

The first time Kaldur touches a cello, he’s eight. It’s a gift from his parents and he loves it. He loves the way the wood feels beneath his tiny fingers. He loves the sounds it makes when he draws the bow across the chromium strings. It makes his parents smile and it’s all he needs. He picks up the cello the same way he picks up everything else: quickly and precisely.

Kaldur is eleven when he starts at the Music School of Rhodes. His mother worries about him being so far from home for the first time. But he excels. He always does. Because Kaldur is perfect. An over-achiever. So smart for his age, so well-mannered, so mature. A natural leader, his report cards say.

He falls in love with Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. There’s something so liberating about the sheer power of the Romantic era. That’s not to say he doesn’t love the rest. His parents like to dance when he plays a Baroque menuet or a waltz. Sha’lain’a always laughs when she realizes that Calvin doesn’t know what he’s doing. It makes them happy and Kaldur wants to make them happy.

It isn’t long before Kaldur discovers power metal. He’s still in love with Antonin Dvorak but there’s something about Sabaton that makes his heart pound and his stomach twist and he feels at home in Joakim Broden’s melodies. He finds a love of opera in Nightwish and a love of thrash in Edvard Grieg. When Kaldur masters all of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, he moves on to DragonForce. He discovers Apocalyptica - any doubt about cellos and heavy metal mixing are gone - and he doesn’t think he can love anything more.

His parents surprise him with a bass guitar when he turns fourteen. It doesn’t take him long to familiarize himself with it. He plays it not unlike how he plays the cello. He’s already found comfort in his style. Long, drown out notes that start out strong, moving to the next before it fades out

No-one is surprised when he graduates early. It’s Kaldur, after all. Most likely to achieve great things. He’s barely eighteen with little idea what to do with his life. Cal’s old employer does work in America, and they manage to arrange an internship for him. Arthur even lines up a symphony audition for him. It’s not the first time he’s been away from home but he’s having a harder time adapting. His English isn’t as good as he thought and it’s so different from what he’s used to.

Things are good. He doesn’t mind the work Arthur has him doing. It keeps him busy, but there isn’t much to take him. It gives him time to practice and to write. He’s not much of a composer, he thinks, but he likes it. Kaldur’s never been good at expressing feelings but this seems to do it.

Kaldur calls home when he can. He has lunch with people in the office. He chats with his stand partner after rehearsals and he does to the section dinners. But for the most part he keeps to himself. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to be friends with the people around him. He just doesn’t know how. Even in Greece, he only really had a few friends. Tula and Garth, mostly, and a few people he was on friendly terms with. But Tula and Garth are still in Greece - and dating, he discovered on the last trip home - and aside from Arthur, he still doesn’t much have anyone here.

And Arthur picks up on the way Kaldur seems to be going through the motions, not really fitting in. He thinks, didn’t Oliver from Queen Industries just take in a boy around Kaldur’s age in the same situation? So he brings it up next time they see each other and Ollie loves the idea of them meeting. Because Roy feels like he has no place in the world and he could really use a friend - or at least someone he won’t try to fight.

Orphaned at fourteen, Roy Harper had nowhere else to go when Oliver Queen took him in. Two, three, four years and he never stopped feeling like a stray. He’d grown up on a Navajo reserve, listening to the Top 40 on the radio only because he had to. A stack of CDs full of Navajo music and a home-made hand drum are the only things he care about keeping. He’s reluctant to touch the expensive drum set Ollie gets him. After getting kicked out of his first school for fighting, Ollie set him up with a therapist who suggested it would be a good way to deal with that anger.

At first, Ollie doesn’t think it makes much of a difference. Roy barely touches the thing. But then he meets an uncle he has in Metropolis who gives Roy his old collection of thrash albums and Ollie’s never regretted anything more in his night when he hears that frigging double bass at all hours. The electric drumset doesn’t sound as nice to Roy’s ears but at least it has volume control.

It takes some coaxing on both ends. Kaldur agrees to meet with Arthur’s business associate’s ward out of respect. Roy just wants a new set of cymbals - he really could use a couple more.

Kaldur can’t remember the last time he’s been so anxious. Arthur never told him much about Roy. He gets the impression that Arthur isn’t overly fond of him but he doesn’t understand why. There’s a comment about gingers and tempers that he wonders about.

He spends hours getting dressed. Every outfit gets discarded until he settles on one that seems appropriate. He doesn’t know Roy or Ollie, but he doesn’t want to make a bad impression. Make-up covers the scarring on his neck. It’s not a casual meeting to him, it’s a job he needs to do perfectly.

Meanwhile, Roy does not give a fuck. This isn’t the first time Ollie’s tried to set him up on a playdate with the charge of someone he works with. Honestly, he doesn’t expect to like Kaldur. Arthur comes across as a bit of a pompous cow, acting like a king, he thinks, and Kaldur’s probably the same.

So Roy throws on a Sabaton shirt and some jeans. Ollie can’t complain too much, at least these jeans don’t have any rips, and the shirt is new. He does spend some time on his hair. He settles on a braid, but decides to leave it down. It comes out a little wavy but he’s late as it is and he doesn’t care.

Neither of them really knows what to expect. And if they expected anything, it’s definitely not what they got.

Roy thinks Kaldur looks like Heaven’s secretary. He’s dressed immaculately, somewhere in the spectrum of business casual. A black vest overtop a red shirt tucked into black pants. He feels awfully overdressed. And Roy regrets shoving the ‘nice clothes’ that Ollie bought him into the back of his closet. He usually doesn’t care about being underdressed - in fact, he tends to make a point of it - but he actually regrets it this time. 

And Kaldur looks at Roy thinking he looks like Dave Mustaine’s porn double. He still isn’t sure he understands Arthur’s ginger comment but he discovers that he does, in fact, have a fondness for redheads. Roy’s smile is coupled with an almost nervous laugh.

Kaldur’s practiced pleasantries for days and he’s practiced Roy’s name for the same time. But in the end, Kaldur smiles and settles with an accented, “I like your shirt.”

He’s been in love with a lot of musicians. But nothing makes him fall harder than the way Roy says his name. And later when Kaldur is panting his name into his ear and forgetting to make sure he doesn’t roll his Rs too hard, Roy’s pretty sure he’s in love too.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at mechanicalpoet.tumblr.com.


End file.
